Mr. John Clinton:

No, we only negotiated in the context of the 2005 agreement. We went to conciliation to design a new work system. We never got involved in the negotiations on what the outcome of the payment would be. We decided at an early stage that both parties, management and ourselves, would design a system and that we would then go before the Civil Service Arbitration Board which decided on the payments. The reason for taking this approach - Deputy Deasy referred to this when trying to get to the explanation of how the system of industrial relations evolved - is that during that time we could not have put in a pay claim through the normal conciliation and arbitration scheme in operation because we were precluded from doing so by the national wage agreements which only allowed workers to enter a claim through their conciliation and arbitration scheme on what would be considered a minor change. The agreement on a new work system was considered to be a huge productivity agreement and, as such, a major change. Therefore, we had to deal with it in the fashion we did. We went through a period of approximately 14 months of conciliation to come up with wide-ranging new work practices. Then, everything to do with the pay elements was put before the Civil Service Arbitration Board which decided on the payments arising from the process.